Longtime ESPN reporter M.A. Voepel comes out as transgender
CBSN
ESPN journalist M.A. Voepel announced on Twitter Wednesday that he is transitioning, and will be using he/him pronouns. The 48-year-old, who the network has called "the foremost authority on women's basketball," is an award-winning veteran of sports journalism, and joined ESPN in 1996.
Voepel said that his recent winning of the prestigious Curt Gowdy Media Award — alongside fellow journalists Walt Fraizer and Dick Ebersol — was the impetus for sharing his identity publicly.
"I have the great honor of receiving [the] Gowdy Award next month from Naismith Hall of Fame, and wanted to do that as [my] authentic self, hence this announcement now," he wrote. "Fear can keep us paralyzed for decades, especially when we think we will lose all that is dear to us, including [our] career."
A class of drugs known as GLP-1s have been helping people lose weight, but out of pocket costs put them out of reach for many Americans. In West Virginia, a subsidy program for public employees was showing promising results, but then the state abruptly ended it, leaving many searching for new solutions.